Praveen Swami is the Daily Telegraph's Diplomatic Editor. He has reported on Asian security issues for almost two decades, and is the author of two books on the India-Pakistan conflict in Kashmir. Most days, he tweets a small selection of key international affairs articles, which you can follow on www.twitter.com/praveenswami

China is treading on dangerous ground

North and South Korea watch each other at the border village of Panmunjom (Photo: Reuters)

When Deng Xiaoping ordered his troops into battle against the Vietnamese in 1979, his message was simple: “Children who don’t listen have to be spanked.” Today, another of China’s neighbours is playing the international truant – but the messages emerging from Beijing are distinctly murkier.

Following North Korea’s attack on Yeonpyeong Island, President Obama has dispatched an aircraft carrier to carry out exercises with the South Korean navy in the Yellow Sea: a sign that he, at least, is willing to act on Deng’s advice. An identical set of exercises were to be held less than six months ago, only to be shifted to the Sea of Japan, in the wake of furious protests from China about their proximity. So China’s reaction to this latest announcement will do much to settle the debate between the panda-huggers and dragon-slayers about the extent to which it is prepared to play by international diplomatic rules.

To understand the reasons for Beijing’s support of Pyongyang, no great imagination is needed. For a start, North Korea ties down American forces that might otherwise be available to protect Taiwan, which China claims as its own. Experts hoped that this had changed after North Korea’s first nuclear weapons test in 2006, when Beijing signed up to United Nations sanctions. But trade between China and North Korea reached $2.79 billion in 2008, up 41.3 per cent in a year.

Last year, North Korea’s second round of nuclear tests earned China’s “firm opposition”, as part of a message advising the people’s republic “strongly” to return to negotiations and appealing to all to “exercise calmness and restraint”. The Yeonpyeong crisis, however, has been met with silence.

For China, this might seem like a local problem. Yet Korea is just one of several regional crises that have the potential to tear apart the trade links on which Chinese prosperity has been built. In recent months, most of its Asian neighbours have seen a deterioration in relations: Japan has sparred with China over the Senkaku islands; Vietnam in the South China Sea; and India over disputed territory in the Himalayas.

Perhaps the best-known flashpoint lies off China’s coast. Five states – Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam – all claim some or all of the territory known as the Spratly Islands (labelled in old British Admiralty maps, appropriately enough, as “dangerous ground”). In March, China sent out patrol boats, claiming that its fishing fleet was being harassed by the Vietnamese coast guard. Vietnam responded by sending its president to visit the islands, accompanied by two destroyers. Hanoi is now purchasing a raft of state-of-the-art military hardware, while China has staged live-fire exercises, signalling its willingness to back up its claims with force.

Japan’s relations with Beijing, meanwhile, have been fraught since September, when a Chinese fishing boat rammed a coastguard ship off the Senkaku Islands, another disputed area. Japan detained the boat’s captain, but was forced to release him after a furious reaction from Beijing. Previously, China had deployed 10 warships to the south of Okinawa, and heightened its submarine activity near Japan.

Finally, China faces problems with India over Arunachal Pradesh, a mountainous region in its north-east, which Beijing claims to be a part of Tibet. There have also been disputes over Ladakh, part of the Tibetan plateau inside Indian-administered Kashmir. India says that its recent decision to deploy two additional divisions was necessitated by a Chinese programme to build roads, railways and airports, which dramatically improved the logistical capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army in the region.

It is possible, as optimists argue, that China’s actions are just a sign of what the scholar Ian Storey calls an “adolescent foreign policy”: muscle-flexing intended to signal the country’s arrival as a great power. However, more than a few observers are sceptical. Hugh White, the author of Australia’s Defence White Paper in 2000, recently provoked a furore by arguing that the decline of US power relative to China made it imperative for his country to prepare itself militarily for a new regional order. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has gone further still, arguing that China’s investments in “modern expeditionary, maritime and air capabilities seem oddly out of step with their stated goal of territorial defence”.

Without many people noticing, a gargantuan strategic competition is under way. China is building bases in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Burma to protect the sea lanes through which it imports oil from the Middle East. It also accelerated the Dong Feng–21D ballistic missile programme, an ambitious project designed to knock out American aircraft carriers. The US, for its part, is pumping billions of dollars into expanding bases at Diego Garcia and Guam.

Back in 1979, Deng warned the Soviet Union that he was prepared to risk full-scale war if the Russians intervened in support of Vietnam. Fearful of provoking a nuclear conflict, and distracted by its ill-fated engagement in Afghanistan, the superpower backed off. Whether the same will happen over North Korea, no one knows. But even if the issue is resolved, the tensions will remain. For years now, the rise of Asia has been a story of double-digit growth and massive new markets. This week’s events have exposed the dark side of the region’s new prosperity, and growing power.